Royal Pastry Shop — Restaurant in Cambridge

price 5/5 service 5/5 food 4/5 (depends on what you get) I past by this place randomly and decided to give it a try. I was curious about how italian pastries taste like outside of North End. Cookies: Much cheaper than Mikes, Modern, or Bova pastry shops in North End. The cookies are $10/lb. They have a variety of cookies to choose from (shape and color wise). I will give the cookies a 3/5 tastewise. They are kinda hard and not as buttery as the ones you get from North End. And I'm a little bit disappointed that they don't have pistachio or almond cookies. Rum cake: 4/5. Taste very good and you can tell the cakes are SOAKED in rum! Lobster tail: This is more like an americanized sfogliatelle. Unlike the ones in North End which are filled with ricotta cheese cream, the lobster tails here are filled with custard. Pizza: tasted amazing! they are square cut sicilian style pizza super fluffy dough and plenty of topping! key lime pie: 5/5. I loved the not too sweet whipped cream on the top! Def balanced out the lime filling inside! I liked it a lot. The prepacked Hermits bread is amazing!! Very strong molasses/ginger/cinnamon taste! Reminds me...

Being French, I might have expected too much of this place. The pastries I had (one éclair and one chocolate croissant) were way too sweet. The éclair had too much stuff and texture inside (whipped cream), which was ruining the experience.

Also, I did not appreciate the service. I had to wait about ten minutes for the lady to finish her phone call when all I wanted were two items. But the most surprising part was that another lady was behind and didn’t think once of coming to ask me what I wanted. Nobody even greeted me... It’s only when two other customers came that they finally started to care about me. Maybe ignoring me wasn’t make on purpose, I don’t know, still I had that uncomfortable experience.

That store experience coupled to the food experience make me less likely to suggest this pastry shop around me, or...

This is a great hidden gem with locations in both Cambridge and Lexington. The cakes and pastries are delectable and are just as good as places like Mike's Pastry or Modern pastry in the North End if not better! Pricewise this place is pretty inflation-proof too. My now husband and I picked up a cake and pastries for our at-home reception after our wedding and all of our friends and family raved about how good dessert was. Furthermore service was good and the workers were super friendly and helpful. All in all, if your looking for North End quality pastry or even pizza and other goodies without the craziness I highly recommend this place. You won't be...